Simon's First Beer
by nathan-p
Summary: Valentine is a bro and arm-wrestles bears. Also, if you break into the wrong door you might wander into entirely the wrong sort of bar. The kind where you can arm-wrestle a bear. For the Towers of Alicante.


The original prompt to this was "Welcome to a city that'll bring you to your knees, it'll make you beg for more 'til you can't even breathe...".

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><p>"This is a terrible idea."<p>

"Shut up before I stab you with a brush."

He shut up and watched with horror as she continued to fiddle with the lock rather desperately. Being a respectable homebody (read: basement-dwelling nerd), while he professed respect for those hardcore enough to pick locks and break into places, he would himself much rather stay at home.

You couldn't get arrested for being a dick in EVE, after all.

He'd only agreed to come out with her tonight because it was summer and he hadn't left the house in a week. Never mind that it had started raining as soon as they left his house, and now he was soaking wet.

If he were a braver man he would have turned around and walked the hell back home. Possibly throwing some sort of witty retort over his shoulder.

However, his name was Simon Lewis, and "brave man" were not words that applied to him in any context.

"Come on," he pleaded. "Why can't we just go to Village Inn or something? Clary, why can't you ever be normal? You're always doing weird shit for no reason!"

"Because," she grumbled.

He was struck by sudden inspiration, much in the same way he might have been struck by a falling brick, but wasn't.

"Move. I've got an idea."

She continued fiddling with the lock for a moment, then sighed and moved over.

He hesitated for a moment, wondering why his best friend never got the strange urge to go to a park or something. They always, always ended up in dark alleys that smelled like piss and rotting meat, or in skeezy clubs in the wrong part of town.

Well, if nothing else, it was exciting.

He pried Clary's hairpin out of the lock (where the fuck did she get a hairpin, her hair wasn't long enough for them to be useful), wiggled the doorknob a little, leaned against the door, and turned the knob.

The door popped open.

Clary punched him in the shoulder.

"Ow! What the fuck!"

"How did you do that?"

He winced. "All the doors in my house suck." Also, I can't believe you tried picking the lock before you tried using the damn doorknob. Why are we friends?

"Much like your mom." She took the hairpin from his hand and shoved it into her purse.

_Clary, I can't believe you brought a purse to break into fuck-knows-where._

He peered inside. It was dark (of course) and smelled... better than the alley, although that wasn't much of a contest.

And there was a faint light at the end, outlining another door that had better not be locked.

"Ladies first." He stepped out of her way.

She shoved him through the door. "Meat shield!"

It smelled like a disquieting mix of new car and blood, and he wished he'd shoved her inside rather than attempt to be nice. New car was never meant to be mixed with Eau de Bar Fight.

He walked down the hallway, with the unsettling feeling that it wasn't a hall meant to be walked down like a normal person. You were probably supposed to stagger or some shit after some asshole threw you through the door.

The floor wasn't sticky, which was somewhat comforting.

The door wasn't locked, which wasn't.

He spared a moment between putting his hand on the knob and turning it for a prayer: please, if I die, don't let my parents find my porn stash.

He turned the knob, opened the door, and stepped inside.

Well. That explained the bar-fight smell in the corridor.

A tired-looking man in an apron and jeans shredding at the cuffs from age was scattering sawdust on a spill on the floor. A middle-aged couple sat at the bar; the man was picking at a paper tray of french fries and watching TV intensely while the woman nursed a Bud. Some twentysomethings were involved in an intense argument at a table against the wall. Neon beer signs everywhere. A moth was buzzing against a hanging light.

In the middle of the room, a man was arm-wrestling a bear.

I have to tell the DM about this, he thought.

In the light of bear-arm-wrestling, the bar looked much less normal.

The man cleaning up the spill had full sleeves of tattoos - your usual stupid shit with tribal designs and HEART MOM, but glowing. And moving.

The TV over the bar wasn't on, but the man watching it seemed to be cheering for a sports team anyway as the woman looked at him disapprovingly. Her beer was a Blood Lite, not a Bud; his french fries came with a side of microwave nacho cheese which he seemed to be enjoying.

The twentysomethings' argument had gotten more intense; one had pulled a knife while the other's hand was sparking with electricity. Another member of the group was too pale even for goth makeup and had tiny orange horns poking through his hair.

The moth was on fire.

He heard footsteps behind him, and then a short redhead girl bowled him over.

"Simon, what the hell!"

_It's not my fault you run down dark corridors into bars that should not be._

Clary got off of him and he pushed himself to his feet.

Everyone was looking at them, even the bear.

"Are you all right?" said the bear.

"Yeah, I'm fine," said Simon.

Clary fixed her hair.

"I think you two need to introduce yourselves," said the bear-arm-wrestler (the one who was not the bear).

"I'm Simon Lewis," he said. If the bear was going to kill him for interrupting its arm-wrestling contest, he might as well give his full name.

"Clarissa Fray," said Clary primly.

From the look the bear-arm-wrestler leveled at the both of them, Simon felt like he'd walked into a campaign that was already half-finished.

"Valentine Morgenstern," he said finally. "At your service."

"Shit!"

The door slammed and by the time Simon turned around Clary had long gone.

_What the fuck you just left me in a bar with a man who arm-wrestles bears. I'm not even old enough to drink. I hope you get hit by a taxi you heartless bitch._

"You know," he said inanely, "if we combined names we could write The Princess Bride."

The bear laughed.

"You're all right, kid," said the bear-arm-wrestler. "It's too bad the plot says I have to kill you."

"What."

"You also get turned into a vampire. Oh, and she'll never ask you out. She dates some other asshole instead. He even has an asshole name, too."

"What."

The bear-arm-wrestler sighed. "I know. I'm supposed to be dead too, but frankly that's really boring."

"No, no, the vampire thing. What?"

The bear rolled its eyes and challenged a member of the crowd to an arm-wrestling contest.

Morgenstern nodded sympathetically. "Yep. Jim, gimme a beer."

The barkeep saluted him. "And one for the kid?"

"And one for the kid." Morgenstern beckoned him over. "Let me catch you up."

Simon had often wished he could live somewhere nice and boring like Kansas.

_I fucking love New York_, he decided.

"Jesus, is there anyone in this bar who's not a pussy?" the bear roared.


End file.
